Saturday, April 21, 2018

Messy


When Rafael Nadal entered men’s tennis, with big biceps and high top spin forehand, his game looked too boring for tennis. In the dominating era of Federer, whose forehand and backhand look classy and effortless, Nadal was a complete contrast. Federer likes to keep rally short and close points early , Nadal on the other hand would keep on rallying and force opponent to make mistake. If Federer's game was neat and classy, Nadal's game was messy. In short, Nadal’s game was a disruption to tennis world.

Being messy is not bad. Some of the world’s best invention has come to light by exploring this path. One can see messiness in all discipline of life. Be it sports, movies, academia, science or business. Some of the successful and highly paid football coaches exist today because they had the patience to try out different strategies and filter out strategies that did not fit to a team. None of these coaches knew that exactly this and this only strategy is best fit to the team. It all starts with the mess where you have amalgam of ideas and you are not sure which will work and which won’t. 

When I first started to play tennis, all my shots were flying outside the court. On TV, when Federer or Sampras plays, the game looks so easy. Hitting a six with a tennis racket seems far easier than placing the ball within the court. My game was a mess. Then with time, as I start to learn the game, my frequency of dropping the ball inside the court increased. Life starts with a mess, and within this mess, one has to figure out which which one works for them which one does not. 

I still remember when our chemistry teacher told us how benzene ring was discovered. The scientist was still figuring out what could be the possible structure of benzene. He had been spending months and months however he could not find any structure that would fit the chemical formula. Then one day when he was sitting on this chair, he saw a dream where a snake was trying to catch her own tail and eureka he discover the famous benzene ring. Such discovery is no new thing in the field of science. Science and discovery is all about experiments, where you make tons and tons of experiments and hope to get lucky with one. Ofcouse these experiments are not random experiments, these are good experiments. Random experiments have no objective, good experiments are done with right intentions and have objective. 

How many times on seeing a successful CEO, we wonder what a life he/she has? However, his path to that success might have not been a clean one. He might have had lot of dilemma on whether the path he had chosen is correct one or not, he might had lot of doubts, he might have had lot of failures. To find that right path he might have been in wrong roads many times. Many times, his friends might have told him to not take that path and had told him “you life is mess man, stop what you are doing”. What his friends did not know is that every time, he had chosen wrong path, he came closer to correct path, every time he had doubts, he came more close to clarity, every time he failed, he learned what to do. What many of us don't realize is that he is exploring his creative potential by embracing mess.